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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2013 10:54:39 GMT
I think the tender system in its current form creates a lot of rigidities. TfL also seems to take all revenue risk - if demand/revenue turns out to be lower than forecast TfL can't cut resources until the contract runs out, and similarly if demand unexpectedly shoots up TfL can't easily increase resources either. Contracts should be designed to give TfL the flexibility of change, and operators should take more revenue risk so they are incentivised to align resources to demand.
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Post by snoggle on Jun 9, 2013 11:12:18 GMT
I bet its more work for TFL to deal with when it comes to problems on the buses. I am glad they are allowing the public to come in and have their say. Well I do hope the problems get solved because TFL need to look in the number 1 priority instead of rolling out NBFL's which is sorting out the entire network. I think it needs some outside prodding like this to force the issue, TfL have got used to minor fiddling with existing routes. They seem to be scared to severely axe routes where there is overprovision and consequently cant afford to improve properly where there are problems. To me, a review of each of the big suburban towns and what is needed, is seriously overdue, some routes don't really serve what they did decades ago. If it means also building a few bus stands instead of having pointless extensions they it should be done. At its simplest in short term if a route is tendered and carrying fresh air, move some of the buses to another route that fits in with todays requirement, even kill routes that would be better replaced by another one serving todays journeys, Operators could be paid to do similar mileage along different roads until tender expires. Interesting view. I am interested to see what Enfield Council come up with in their "clean sheet" redesign and then how they decide to tell the public about it. There is virtually nothing on the web about what they are doing which I find odd given they moan about a lack of openness from TfL. The problem with area reviews is that you can't win no matter what you do. If you throw everything up in the air and change it you upset an awful lot of people who use your buses already. You give the media a perfect excuse to slag off buses when what we need is some positive commentary about them. If you are TfL then you never win because even tweaking the slightest thing might upset a councillor or someone who is very vocal. As was said at the meeting it tends to be "losers" who shout louder to stop changes than those who would benefit from them. My big worry about the Enfield Council thing is that there was no obvious recognition that buses in Enfield actually go into other boroughs. It was very much "we're alright and we don't care about other areas". There was a remark about "not needing long radial routes to the centre and cut buses short at interchanges and keep more buses in Enfield". Well that's fine for Enfield but what about Barnet or Haringey? Do the buses users of Edmonton and Tottenham have to be disadvantaged so someone gets some double deckers in Enfield? The answer might be "yes" but I couldn't see any real acknowledgement of that very real problem. I think the other problem is this "empty buses are bad, all buses must be full" view. Whether we like it or not some routes are never going to be full. However it does not mean that those more marginal services are not very useful to the people that use them or who might use them to reach a particular place. We also need to accept that if there are ever any new routes introduced that they are likely to be "quiet" or "underused" for a fair period of time. It takes time for patronage to build. The related aspect of "empty buses" is the risk that people see buses running in the contra-peak direction or early morning or evenings or Sundays and say "waste of money" and then demand these buses are withdrawn. Interestingly Professor White of Westminster University made a telling remark at the meeting that London's patronage levels are so high because there is an attractive network and comprehensive coverage by time of day / day of week. This is in stark contrast to towns and cities elsewhere in the UK.
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Post by snoggle on Jun 9, 2013 11:30:49 GMT
I think the tender system in its current form creates a lot of rigidities. TfL also seems to take all revenue risk - if demand/revenue turns out to be lower than forecast TfL can't cut resources until the contract runs out, and similarly if demand unexpectedly shoots up TfL can't easily increase resources either. Contracts should be designed to give TfL the flexibility of change, and operators should take more revenue risk so they are incentivised to align resources to demand. Not sure I agree about rigidity. Contracts can always be varied and it is simply a cost issue in London precisely because TfL take revenue risk. If the operators bore revenue risk then there'd be "angels on a pin head" arguments about how much money an operator would lose, and therefore be compensated for, if TfL wanted to change timetables or routes. The biggest influences on bus travel are often outside of an operator's control - the state of the economy, where a hospital is, locations of shops and schools plus traffic congestion. It's perfectly clear that TfL can and do change things where required - look at all the temporary schedules to deal with road works. Routes do change but not that often. I think there needs to be a balance between change which is absolutely necessary and is supported by users and just changing for changes' sake - look at the chaos you get with some deregulated places like Harlow. Operators, routes, timetables change all the time and how anyone knows what bus is due when I don't know. Most people need to have a service they can rely upon and the best operators know this and do not throw things up in the air every 12 months or so. I think a lot of Londoners would rightly complain if their buses were being mucked about with every few months and they couldn't see what was behind the changes. If you want operators to take revenue risk then you should just deregulate and leave them to get on with it - however that would mean fare rises and service cuts in many places. Obviously some routes would see competition but I don't think London would benefit from deregulation. In my submission to the TC I have suggested that TfL experiment with a hybrid form of contract where operators can get a share of the revenue but in return for offering a much higher quality of service and vehicles. I cited some of the good examples of deregulated operators who have high spec buses on interurban services and said London should try something similar to create extra orbital fast routes in the suburbs. It'll get ignored by TfL because there is no money to even start these routes off but at least I've said my piece.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2013 12:06:04 GMT
Bus tendering can learn some lessons from railway franchising actually. Although the franchising system has been slated by many, there are actually a lot of good principles at work. The whole point of tendering is that the public sector can specify some level of stability by stipulating a 'baseline' that the operators cannot go below. The process should then be designed such that necessary changes can be facilitated, e.g. by change clauses in the contract, and by aligning incentives such the the operators would benefit from exercising initiatives. There is a 'cap and collar' system whereby operators are compensated if revenue falls short of agreed forecasts and the public purse gets a share of extra revenue if the franchise outperforms forecasts. You achieve the stability of a publicly run service but also some kind of innovation/initiative seen in a deregulated market, but also avoid the kind of rigidities in a purely public-run service and the utter chaos in a purely deregulated environment.
It's not just about money - it's about utilising resources that generate the biggest social, economic and commercial benefits. It's not the case that you'd have to either increase spending or increase fares - in Nottingham for example the bus network is arguably of a better quality than in London yet fares are very competitive. You can have your cake and eat it.
The other problem with the current franchising system is that you cannot easily make strategic changes at a network level because routes are tendered one by one. It's difficult to make coordinated changes across a number of routes when they are at different stages of the contract life cycle. It would be interesting to see what would happen if whole networks are tendered out as franchises like on the railways.
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Post by vjaska on Jun 9, 2013 14:22:11 GMT
London Travelwatch have made a submission to the London Assembly about bus services. There are some interesting remarks and observations as well as some examples that will resonate with people here (e.g Bromley North). Being ever so slightly big headed it is nice to see that some of what I have said in my submission is very similar to the remarks made by London Travelwatch. Happy to see that the overcrowding issue on the 109 (London Road section) has been noted. Indeed but me, you & everyone else has known that since the turn of the century, the 109 has been getting more & more crowded so why has it taken all this time for them to come to that conclusion? Just like the example about the 3 and the parked cars on South Croxted Road, it's been like that for many years.
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Post by snoggle on Jun 9, 2013 15:43:40 GMT
Bus tendering can learn some lessons from railway franchising actually. Although the franchising system has been slated by many, there are actually a lot of good principles at work. The whole point of tendering is that the public sector can specify some level of stability by stipulating a 'baseline' that the operators cannot go below. The process should then be designed such that necessary changes can be facilitated, e.g. by change clauses in the contract, and by aligning incentives such the the operators would benefit from exercising initiatives. There is a 'cap and collar' system whereby operators are compensated if revenue falls short of agreed forecasts and the public purse gets a share of extra revenue if the franchise outperforms forecasts. You achieve the stability of a publicly run service but also some kind of innovation/initiative seen in a deregulated market, but also avoid the kind of rigidities in a purely public-run service and the utter chaos in a purely deregulated environment. It's not just about money - it's about utilising resources that generate the biggest social, economic and commercial benefits. It's not the case that you'd have to either increase spending or increase fares - in Nottingham for example the bus network is arguably of a better quality than in London yet fares are very competitive. You can have your cake and eat it. The other problem with the current franchising system is that you cannot easily make strategic changes at a network level because routes are tendered one by one. It's difficult to make coordinated changes across a number of routes when they are at different stages of the contract life cycle. It would be interesting to see what would happen if whole networks are tendered out as franchises like on the railways. Nottingham is a very rare exception where competition is very limited which gives NCT a virtual monopoly on the routes it runs. As I understand it there is not a lot of overlap with Trent Barton. NCT was also clever enough not to allow bits of its network to "fall into emeny hands" through deregistration of "marginal" routes. They have, instead, decided to invest to try to grow the market. That option exists right across deregulation land but very few operators take up the mantle and actively try to improve things. Is there a report that says that the NCT bus network does generate the biggest social, economic and commercial benefits? I doubt very much that a network that delivered the biggest commercial benefits would also deliver the biggest social benefits at the same time. Those two things are likely to be conflict. If the task in hand was optimising or balancing social, economic and commercial benefits then I might agree with you but that is not what you said. NCT can only do what it does because it is not tasked with achieving stock market levels of returns for shareholders. Sure Transdev are part owners but they are a minority shareholder. The rail franchise model is considered to be flawed by a great many people. The whole process is predicated on operators "taking a bet" on how well the economy will perform and bidding ridiculous premium amounts. We have had the nonsense of the East Coast operator collapsing twice and almost all TOCs now being in revenue support of some sort. There is very little "innovation" from TOCs and it can be a struggle to get them to actually deliver their franchise commitments. Cross Country were years late in delivering their "just in time, mobile phone reservation" facility and were threatened by the DfT many times. Even with cap and collar there is still an amount of revenue risk bid into the contract which could be released if the operator did not hold that risk. LOROL only have a tiny amout of revenue risk, related to things like revenue protection, but otherwise TfL takes the revenue risk for Overground services. I don't think anyone considers the LOROL concession to be a failure. TOCs now have next to no leeway as to how to "flex" services as the DfT controls the rolling stock fleet allocation, now buys several train fleets without much TOC involvement and constrains the TOCs in many, many aspects. The DfT also basically lies to the public when it maintains the fiction that TOCs could go out and buy trains at the drop of a hat. Of course they cannot do this without the DfT agreeing to any cost changes and also guaranteeing they would be passed over to any successor TOC on that franchise. I suspect TOC franchises are more tightly managed that TfL bus contracts are. TfL can flex contracts if it wants to. The argument here and elsewhere is how well and how often they do that. There would appear (careful words) to be some sort of problem about the level of TfL's awareness of big changes to demand or to things that would change demand and how they then use such info and turn into revised services. I have not watched the entire webcast yet but there is an element of unreality in all the demands for changed and amended services. That unreality relates to money and the fact that the Mayor has demanded (indirectly) vast reductions in bus subsidy. TfL has no money so services cannot be changed in any meaningful way. People need to vote for someone who will ensure that bus service improvement is a commitment. In my submission I have said that I do not consider it possible for TfL to cope with increased demand for buses within a fixed or declining budget. What TfL have done so far is cope with subsidy reductions and kept the implications secret from the average person in the street. We are now at the point where they can't do that anymore because more and more cuts and / or bigger fare increases will be required.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2013 16:57:40 GMT
Nottingham is an exception indeed in that it is dominated to two bus operators (NCT and Trent Barton) who know what they are doing, who are innovative and run by (closet) enthusiasts. Where they do overlap they know not to compete head-on and race to the bottom.
I don't at all agree that commercial and social goals are likely to conflict. The social goal would be to achieve the best connection possible, and the commercial goal would be to grow your business through providing the best connection possible. Any sensible operator would do what NCT, Wellglade, Go Ahead and Stagecoach do and actively explore business opportunities. Bus operation, by and large, ought to be profitable, and the fact that London's operation requires such huge amounts of subsidy indicates there's rather a lot of inefficiency going on.
London is big and dense, and that means buses can almost always achieve a 'bums to seats' ratio that's an envy of provincial operators. Even in evenings and on Sundays buses are so well used. There are a few settlements with rural characteristics in London, but they are few and far between that any loss-making social operation ought to be able to be subsidised from profits from the rest of the network alone. Profit needs not necessarily be a dirty word - ultimately what you want to have an efficient network that make the best economic use of resources.
I get the impression that TfL are simply not very interested in accurately measuring its cost base and its demand base, because for a while they have been comfortably sitting on a gravy train. I sincerely hope that I am wrong and apologies to anyone from the industry reading who know differently. As a first example, there is little evidence that origin-destination data is being collected from Oyster readings. While there is only entry data validation, you can quite easily imply exit locations from looking at how people make regular return trips. It's not difficult to write a program that automates this process. Relying on entry data alone does not allow you to accurately assessing demand and especially crowding, which is why routes with similar numbers of Oyster entries but vastly different average trip lengths often get the same frequency of service, and also why TfL at one point wanted to axe the X26 because the number of entries is so low for a route of that length. Second example - routes that duplicate each other are often not coordinated leading to uneaven loadings, but creating an impression of overcrowding for the majority of passengers who end up on the crowded bus 1 minute in front of an empty bus. Route regulation is done on a route-by-route basis, e.g. the 73 and 476 are not regulated together.
What all this means is TfL are relying on infrequent surveys and complaints that amount to no more than Jo saying today that his route is unreliable and John saying tomorrow his route is overcrowded. It's then very difficult for TfL to argue for changes, as there's no way of knowing whether increasing resources would increase enough revenue, or whether cutting resources here is justified because you can realise greater benefits there. Private operators can change things at a whim, but being TfL any decisions need to be politically justified. It is therefore no wonder that TfL often chooses the easy option of maintaining the status quo.
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Post by snoggle on Jun 9, 2013 17:54:28 GMT
Nottingham is an exception indeed in that it is dominated to two bus operators (NCT and Trent Barton) who know what they are doing, who are innovative and run by (closet) enthusiasts. Where they do overlap they know not to compete head-on and race to the bottom. I don't at all agree that commercial and social goals are likely to conflict. The social goal would be to achieve the best connection possible, and the commercial goal would be to grow your business through providing the best connection possible. Any sensible operator would do what NCT, Wellglade, Go Ahead and Stagecoach do and actively explore business opportunities. Bus operation, by and large, ought to be profitable, and the fact that London's operation requires such huge amounts of subsidy indicates there's rather a lot of inefficiency going on. London is big and dense, and that means buses can almost always achieve a 'bums to seats' ratio that's an envy of provincial operators. Even in evenings and on Sundays buses are so well used. There are a few settlements with rural characteristics in London, but they are few and far between that any loss-making social operation ought to be able to be subsidised from profits from the rest of the network alone. Profit needs not necessarily be a dirty word - ultimately what you want to have an efficient network that make the best economic use of resources. I get the impression that TfL are simply not very interested in accurately measuring its cost base and its demand base, because for a while they have been comfortably sitting on a gravy train. I sincerely hope that I am wrong and apologies to anyone from the industry reading who know differently. As a first example, there is little evidence that origin-destination data is being collected from Oyster readings. While there is only entry data validation, you can quite easily imply exit locations from looking at how people make regular return trips. It's not difficult to write a program that automates this process. Relying on entry data alone does not allow you to accurately assessing demand and especially crowding, which is why routes with similar numbers of Oyster entries but vastly different average trip lengths often get the same frequency of service, and also why TfL at one point wanted to axe the X26 because the number of entries is so low for a route of that length. Second example - routes that duplicate each other are often not coordinated leading to uneaven loadings, but creating an impression of overcrowding for the majority of passengers who end up on the crowded bus 1 minute in front of an empty bus. Route regulation is done on a route-by-route basis, e.g. the 73 and 476 are not regulated together. What all this means is TfL are relying on infrequent surveys and complaints that amount to no more than Jo saying today that his route is unreliable and John saying tomorrow his route is overcrowded. It's then very difficult for TfL to argue for changes, as there's no way of knowing whether increasing resources would increase enough revenue, or whether cutting resources here is justified because you can realise greater benefits there. Private operators can change things at a whim, but being TfL any decisions need to be politically justified. It is therefore no wonder that TfL often chooses the easy option of maintaining the status quo. I think we have rather different views of what social and commercial objectives are. Go Ahead and Stagecoach are only in business to *maximise* the return to shareholders, many of whom will be institutional investors who are deeply rational about where their money goes. Any sign that maximum profits aren't being made then they'll dump the shares. NCT and Wellglade are not under those pressures. Stagecoach and Go Ahead *might* explore business opportunities better than First or Arriva *but* any opportunity that doesn't meet its targets gets dumped in short order. Stagecoach have dumped many such adventures but at least they tried and that is where Mr Souter is to be applauded! A commercial network in London would look very different to the TfL network and would not necessarily be better in many areas. Does anyone imagine that bits of Croydon, Barnet, Havering and Sutton to name a few outer boroughs would keep their current level of evening and Sunday services under deregulation? They really would not. I think we need to be very careful in just saying "london routes are basically commercial due to lots of bums on seats". They are busy because fares are low and flat, services are largely reliable, because there is a lot of clever technology to make things simple and because there are good service levels. There is zero guarantee that all those bums on seats would remain if fares were tapered according to distance, you could really only pay by cash and fares were set at commercial levels such as £2.50 rather than £1.40, buses were unreliable and only ran during the day. It is only in recent years where there has been booming patronage because of better service quality which we got from increased subsidy. Do you have any evidence to support your statements about TfL's view of the cost base or their use of Oyster data? I do not believe that TfL are clueless about how much the bus network costs to run. How could they ever agree a contract with anyone if they didn't? That sort of sloppiness would not pass internal governance nor internal or external audit. I have been through all of those three processes but on the LUL side of things and it is no picnic. When KPMG reviewed the bus network they did not any specific failings about VFM or costing. Of course TfL does not rely solely on boarding data - it surveys each route and conducts origin and destination checks with passengers. I do not know the extent to which Oyster data is being "mined" by TfL and I agree it is possible to do as you suggest. I would be astonished if the data was not being used to some extent. I broadly agree with you about route headways and have made this point to the Committee. I do not believe it is practical to balance headways on high frequency routes such as the 73 and 476. I do believe much, much more can be done on lower frequency services or when high frequency routes operate at lower frequencies (early, late, Sundays) to ensure a decent spacing of buses on common sections of route. I provided a local example where such a facility existed but has been lost due to contractor / timetable changes. I also think that some outer areas could have more efficient services, in terms of allowing people to get around easily, if there were guaranteed connections at planned locations and buses waited to allow people to change between routes. You don't necessarily need such high frequencies if people were confident about being able to make their overall journey. This is particularly important in areas like Bexley or Orpington where it is very hard to justify high frequency services. If people knew they could catch their "R" bus and it would connect with other "R" routes plus a 51 and a 208 to go north / north west then that might be an attractive prospect in the evening or Sunday where high service levels can't be supported. I suspect we could go on all night but as we don't really agree on some of the fundamentals it might be best to call a "truce" so to speak. I don't want to hog the thread even though it's the sort of thing that really interests me.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2013 23:00:48 GMT
I think you are slightly over-interpreting what I said snoggle. Sorry if I haven't been entirely clear, but nowhere have I suggested London's operation should be a deregulated free-for-all, but merely that London's geography ought to support a good quality bus network that at least breaks even. Yes a private company would seek to maximise return to shareholders, but quite often this equates to growing your market, an approach Go Ahead and Stagecoach generally take. First are actually unusual in that they are only ever interested in cutting costs to the bone, and it's no surprise they are finding themselves in their current predicament - in short First don't actually understand their business in a way operators like Go Ahead and Stagecoach do. Now a profit-maximising PLC would stop at the point where marginal cost exceeds marginal revenue, and also where price elasticity of demand goes to above -1, i.e. the point where profit growth becomes negative. Up until this point commercial and social objectives are aligned. Beyond this point however a social mindset does need to kick in. This is where your improved services at unsocial hours and for low-density settlements come in. My argument is this extra level of social objective can be met without the profit curve plunging into negative territory.
I dispute your assertion that a profitable bus network in London would automatically look worse with high fares and low frequencies. While London's single fares are probably unrivalled, all-day and season tickets are actually no cheaper than other cities, and in fact much more expensive than say Nottingham's Kangaroo or Oxford's Smartzone. Compare the £784 London annual bus pass with the £492 Nottingham annual Kangaroo (including trains and trams) and the £420 Oxford annual Smartzone. Before you say London's area is much bigger, the typical radius of bus travel is seldom larger than Nottingham's or Oxford's area. Longer-distance travel is usually made on much more expensive Travelcards. Service levels in Nottingham are no worse than in similar sized Havering and Croydon, where 15-30 minute evening and Sunday frequencies are the norm. Bus cleanliness in Nottingham is miles ahead of that in London.
Of course TfL would know what their costs are, but that doesn't necessarily mean they understand them, especially the relationship between marginal cost and marginal demand. The point on coordination, on which you agree with me, illustrate that perfectly. The other symptom is that TfL never ever attempts to improve bus journey times - at the moment pedestrians and cycles are TfL's favourites, and their policies are almost always geared towards slowing traffic down, and buses are all too often collateral damage in this, and nobody seems to bat an eyelid at the cost implications to the bus network.
All I'm saying is that TfL needs to think more like a business. Obviously not like First, but NCT and Wellglade would be good examples to learn from. Currently the TfL tendering system actually encourages operators to think like First i.e. to reduce cost. As long as basic TfL requirements are met bob's your uncle - no efforts made to go above and beyond, minimal efforts to improve bus presentation and cleanliness, minimal customer service training for drivers and no marketing whatsoever. On the other hand the rail franchising system actually encourages TOCs to behave like Go Ahead and Stagecoach, since bids are not only assessed on the basis of cost, but also on a variety of quality metrics (not just punctuality targets, but actual service initiatives), and with revenue risk that stops operators from doing just the bare minimum. Obviously things went to overdrive with bidders using unrealistic assumptions, but these days much more focus is being put on deliverability - if a bidder uses wildly optimistic GDP forecasts then they are unlikely to win.
I work in the transport industry and believe me bus demand forecasting is absolutely primitive. TfL will be better than provincial operators, but their demand modelling for buses is still nowhere near as sophisticated as DfT's rail demand modelling (modelling for Tube is probably not too bad). Being rather close to the franchising process I'd say while the devil is always in the detail the principles are actually quite sound.
Don't think there's anything wrong with 'hogging' this thread as this is exactly the type of thread where such topics are most relevant.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2013 20:17:09 GMT
It transpires I have been rather harsh in my assessment of TfL's demand modelling capabilities. I was chatting to a colleague who used to work in the surface transport division at TfL, and he told me that TfL do study demand at origin-destination level. They do calibrate parameters such as elasticities too, which would suggest TfL's modelling might not be that far behind DfT's for rail. Currently origin-destination data for buses is inferred through surveys, though in my view these surveys have intrinsic weaknesses, particularly for peak flows. A process of mining Oyster data through finding mirror patterns and other rules that I suggested is actually being developed as we speak, and he reckons that orignin-destination pairs for as many as 90% of all bus journeys could be inferred. The problem is that datasets are so large such that a good degree of aggregation is usually applied when interpreting the data, which could potentially mask some important underlying information.
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Post by snoggle on Jun 10, 2013 23:03:24 GMT
It transpires I have been rather harsh in my assessment of TfL's demand modelling capabilities. I was chatting to a colleague who used to work in the surface transport division at TfL, and he told me that TfL do study demand at origin-destination level. They do calibrate parameters such as elasticities too, which would suggest TfL's modelling might not be that far behind DfT's for rail. Currently origin-destination data for buses is inferred through surveys, though in my view these surveys have intrinsic weaknesses, particularly for peak flows. A process of mining Oyster data through finding mirror patterns and other rules that I suggested is actually being developed as we speak, and he reckons that orignin-destination pairs for as many as 90% of all bus journeys could be inferred. The problem is that datasets are so large such that a good degree of aggregation is usually applied when interpreting the data, which could potentially mask some important underlying information. Well it's nice to see an acknowledgement that TfL are not as dire as you thought. I worked there for 26 years and had a decent amount of involvement with operational research people (for LU) so I know how things are researched, reviewed and utilised. I know less about Surface Transport but would expect their research and statistical modelling to be similar to that for LU. It is clearly not perfect but then no modelling ever is because of assumptions and the necessary limits to the statistical data used. I note your comments about TfL "being more like a business". Well TfL is a series of businesses controlled via the Transport Trading Limited holding company. Despite how it might look from the outside there is a great deal of commercial expertise within TfL - if there were not the place would be in a dire state. It can never, however, be fully commercial because it has social obligations mandated via statute and because it is answerable to politicians. You'll never get a fully commercial position in those sorts of circumstances - too many compromises forced through because the likely reaction.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2013 20:29:50 GMT
There seems to a belief in certain quarters of TfL that social and commercial objectives are fundamentally opposed to each other - that's just not the case. On the bus side commercial efficiency seems to be way down the priority list, certainly compared to the LU side. Tube Trains are upgraded to achieve maximum acceleration and deceleration and doors open and close very quickly; the escalators run fast and you are asked to walk on the left side. With the buses, performance is restricted to death, doors take ages to close, and there are countless instances of general meddling with silly policies and flip-flops regarding tip-up seats and liveries. That was kind of okay when money came pouring in but there's such an ingrained culture now that when achieving better efficiency will become necessary TfL won't be able to easily adjust.
There is an NCT supplement in the last issue of Passenger Transport that's very interesting. The managing director Mark Fowles says that NCT could easily make a 10-15% profit, but they choose to mainly break-even in order to meet social obligations. In a separate article in Passenger Transport he was quoted saying if NCT had TfL levels of support they'd be able to replace the fleet every 3 years and run services for free. OK the second comment is probably a bit of a hyperbole but it demonstrates just how much fat there potentially is in London's buses. Of course London's cost base is a bit higher, e.g. staffing, and traffic conditions are necessarily such that buses can't turn around as quickly as they can in the provinces. But London's geography and demographics naturally provides higher concentration of bus trips compared to even Nottingham. These factors should cancel each other out, and there is scope to improve journey times.
One last point about the tendering process. IMO TfL is currently stuck in a bit of a half-way house. The contracts are neither pure management contracts nor ones that encourage proactivity from operators. Operators are not incentivised to optimise timetables (within specified constraints of course) in order to generate extra demand hence revenue, yet TfL do not write timetables across the network to optimise coordination. Either micromanage or incentivise.
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Post by snoggle on Jun 25, 2013 9:39:31 GMT
The transcript from the first Transport Commitee meeting on TfL Bus Services is available for those who might wish to read it. TranscriptIt's fairly long but gives a good view as to what people are concerned about. The second meeting with TfL responding to questions is next Tuesday 2 July 2013.
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Post by snoggle on Oct 27, 2013 12:41:46 GMT
Alert - The London Assembly report on Bus Services is apparently due out tomorrow. Looks like it is going to be highly critical of the lack of forward planning and money to allow for expansion. This is based on a short film and discussion in the Sunday Politics programme currently on BBC1. Lots of footage about the Tennison Way stops at Waterloo and also Crouch End plus mentions about the 343 (quelle surprise!) and Roehampton being served by the 22. It will be on I-Player later and is repeated on BBC Parliament late Sunday evening.
Looks like the Transport Committee is demanding a report from TfL next year about how they are going to plan to expand the bus network to cater for growing demand. Very interestingly it seems that there is cross party agreement on the report which makes it much harder for the Mayor and TfL to ignore. Even dear old Richard Tracey, a Conservative Assembly Member, seems to be on side which is interesting.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2013 16:12:27 GMT
If you read the article you will see that free travel for children and the unemployed is at risk. The unemployed do not get free travel of any description. They are issued a photocard by their JobCentre allowing them to travel at child rate.
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